Listing: B+ (Scottish Baronial-Style Castle, built between 1856 and 1858 by the Annesley family)

Project carried out: Aug-Oct 2018

Granite retaining wall on the boundary of Castlewellan Castle and the Forest Park.  Previous inappropriate repairs and vegetative growth had caused the copings to move and sections of stonework to collapse.  The wall had become unsafe.

Works included the sympathetic removal of extensive vegetative growth which had grown into the wall in a number of areas, moving sections of stonework and causing damage/failure. Inappropriate, cementitious mortar repairs and repointing carried out had led to the movement of the half-moon granite copings allowing additional moisture ingress and vegetation to grow into the core of the wall.  To repair the wall, we removed the copings and deconstructed the damaged wall tops in sections, before rebuilding the stonework and bedding the copings in NHL3.5.  Copings were dowelled together in sections.  Wall was raked out, removing inappropriate cementitious mortars and repointed with NHL3.5 lime mortar. Corner of the wall was taken down and rebuilt, to allow removal of a tree which had started growing out of the centre of the wall.